In the years since the reform and opening up, the research on Chinese education policy can be divided into the first two decades and the latter two decades. Many articles published in the first period were publicity of new policies, general suggestions on policy, and summaries of policy learning experience, and there was little research on innovative theoretical construction and practical policy phenomenon. In the latter two decades, the study of education policy has gradually become a “distinguished school” in educational research. Internationally, the research on education policy is a new field in educational research that has developed rapidly since the 1980s. It has become the most prominent content and focus in international educational research. This is not a phenomenon unique to education, but the reflection of the application trend of social science in whole social disciplines. Since the 1980s, public policy, a comprehensive discipline, has developed very rapidly. Strictly speaking, this is not a discipline, but a development trend of almost all social sciences, that is, the tendency developing from the theoretical speculation of “what it is” to the applicable development of “how it does.” At present, almost all the well-known scholars devoted to various disciplines in the world have participated in the research on relevant policies in the discipline; almost all the research results with a significant impact on theory and practice are related to decision-making (Yuan 2000). With such knowledge of education policy, when researchers in the field conducted the research, they kept in a line with the development of empirical and experienced-oriented education research, and they paid attention to applying methods, collecting empirical data, establishing logical chains of evidence, getting clear conclusions, and making suggestions or conclusions followed by policy’s application, all of which constituted an indispensable part of education policy study and become a new paradigm of empirical-oriented education policy research, and an emergence of policy study on critical speculation and comments. Around 2000, several textbooks and monographs with the same name Education Policy were published in China. However, the research themes revealed in the books did not develop into full academic branches. With the advancement of various educational reforms by the government, it was so easy to make the study of education policy that the threshold became close to zero. In the research fields of interest listed in the research keywords and resumes of more and more educational researchers, the word “policy” appears more and more frequent. The research on education policy was considered more like an element that occasionally appeared with change of educational practice, rather than a natural evolution from academic research or disciplinary development. Therefore, it is difficult to argue that it is an independent and serious research topic. For the above-mentioned reasons, this chapter focuses on the connection between various concepts, themes and methods in education policy study and the various forms and structures which our educational reform carried out in this era, and tries to sort out them briefly and make some interpretations.

Research on China’s Education Policy: Emerging Research Paradigm

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发表日期：

2025年

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Lin Xiaoying

摘要

In the years since the reform and opening up, the research on Chinese education policy can be divided into the first two decades and the latter two decades. Many articles published in the first period were publicity of new policies, general suggestions on policy, and summaries of policy learning experience, and there was little research on innovative theoretical construction and practical policy phenomenon. In the latter two decades, the study of education policy has gradually become a “distinguished school” in educational research. Internationally, the research on education policy is a new field in educational research that has developed rapidly since the 1980s. It has become the most prominent content and focus in international educational research. This is not a phenomenon unique to education, but the reflection of the application trend of social science in whole social disciplines. Since the 1980s, public policy, a comprehensive discipline, has developed very rapidly. Strictly speaking, this is not a discipline, but a development trend of almost all social sciences, that is, the tendency developing from the theoretical speculation of “what it is” to the applicable development of “how it does.” At present, almost all the well-known scholars devoted to various disciplines in the world have participated in the research on relevant policies in the discipline; almost all the research results with a significant impact on theory and practice are related to decision-making (Yuan 2000). With such knowledge of education policy, when researchers in the field conducted the research, they kept in a line with the development of empirical and experienced-oriented education research, and they paid attention to applying methods, collecting empirical data, establishing logical chains of evidence, getting clear conclusions, and making suggestions or conclusions followed by policy’s application, all of which constituted an indispensable part of education policy study and become a new paradigm of empirical-oriented education policy research, and an emergence of policy study on critical speculation and comments. Around 2000, several textbooks and monographs with the same name Education Policy were published in China. However, the research themes revealed in the books did not develop into full academic branches. With the advancement of various educational reforms by the government, it was so easy to make the study of education policy that the threshold became close to zero. In the research fields of interest listed in the research keywords and resumes of more and more educational researchers, the word “policy” appears more and more frequent. The research on education policy was considered more like an element that occasionally appeared with change of educational practice, rather than a natural evolution from academic research or disciplinary development. Therefore, it is difficult to argue that it is an independent and serious research topic. For the above-mentioned reasons, this chapter focuses on the connection between various concepts, themes and methods in education policy study and the various forms and structures which our educational reform carried out in this era, and tries to sort out them briefly and make some interpretations.